Longhorns' Jungmann, Knebel win national honors

Longhorns looking ahead with return of key freshmen.

Published 4:21 pm, Thursday, June 23, 2011

OMAHA, Neb. — Texas players collected a couple of noteworthy national awards Tuesday. Starting pitcher Taylor Jungmann earned the Dick Howser Trophy as college baseball's player of the year. Reliever Corey Knebel was named Stopper of the Year.

The individual honors, however, belied the Longhorns' inability to capture the team accolade they desired most.

“We obviously wanted a national championship really bad, especially for seniors like Cole (Green) and people like that who don't get to play here anymore,” junior shortstop Brandon Loy said. “It's tough to look at it that way.”

The seventh-seeded Longhorns lost both their games in the College World Series, 8-4 to Florida and 3-0 to North Carolina, failing to win at least a game in Omaha for the first time since 2000. Still, UT coach Augie Garrido said it was an accomplishment for UT to have earned its 34th trip to the CWS, regardless of its showing at TD Ameritrade Park.

“I'm proud of the leadership on this team, and I'm not just throwing that around,” said Garrido, who owns five national titles, including two with Texas. “(The leaders) took a team that was pretty scattered at the beginning of the year and pulled it together and kept it functioning like one so we had the opportunity to come here.

“They deserve to be proud of themselves, in my opinion, for being able to be that unselfish and that influential, and do what needed to be done to get here in the first place.”

“You didn't see us overwhelm anybody with physical talent,” Garrido said. “It was about attitude, and it was about spirit. (We had) 11 freshmen, five of which played key roles. My feeling about that is in being here (in Omaha) a few times, until you've been here, it's harder to play here.

“With 11 freshmen coming back who have the right attitude, the right talent and the right skill, the leaders of this team have given them an introduction to the College World Series as we know it in the new ballpark.”

Should the Longhorns make a return trip to the CWS sometime soon — and they've played in the CWS in seven of the past 12 seasons — they'll still be in search of their first victory in TD Ameritrade, after winning six national titles at old Rosenblatt Stadium on the other side of town. Despite UT's two losses in the $130 million home to college baseball's grandest stage, Garrido loves the new digs.

“It's absolutely beautiful and a wonderful place to be playing,” he said. “It embraces everybody by the way it's laid out, and it connects everyone in the ballpark to what's going on. It has a great, positive energy. It will take time to build a tradition, but it's a statement that college baseball is alive and continues to grow.”

The junior Jungman, who entered the NCAA tournament 13-0 but wound up 13-3, was the 12th overall selection of the amateur draft to the Milwaukee Brewers and is expected turn pro. The Longhorns had nine players overall selected in the draft, including junior pitcher Sam Stafford to the New York Yankees in the second round and Loy in the fifth round to the Detroit Tigers.

The junior players have until Aug. 15 to sign a pro contract or return for another season with the Longhorns — and ideally another shot in Omaha. Garrido said “anything can happen” in the CWS when a team builds up a little momentum.

“That's the beauty of it all,” he said. “It could have happened for us, but it didn't. We never got the momentum. Never.”